‘The National Trust should act its age’

There is some decidedly adult content in the ‘Children’s Country House’.

Calvin Po has taken his two-year-old godson to visit the new-look Sudbury Hall. He writes:

‘The final straw for me was the thoughtless treatment of the Long Gallery. Undoubtedly the pinnacle of the house’s architectural drama, it spans the entire 138-foot length of both of Sudbury’s wings. Yet it was interrupted by a “selfie booth” for children to dress up as figures in the family portraits that punctuate the gallery.

‘The Vernon portraits have not been spared humiliation either: under each one, the poet-playwright Toby Campion has added speech bubbles with quips such as: “Looks like they’ve got me dressed in silk sheets. At least it makes me look classy”. The captions are banal and unfunny. Worse, this infantile guff was paid for with public money from the Arts Council. The children paid little of it any attention.’